Estonia – 101 ways to eat pickled herring

by Uli Probst

Tallinn, the capital of Estonia is on the Baltic Sea

You want to be successful in business? Go to Estonia. That is what we did after our canoe tour in Latvia. After the border to Estonia, the roads got better immediately. We soon found out, why.
If you want to make money, open up an Audi dealership in Estonia. Every second car on the street is an Audi. Okay, there are also BMW and Mercedes, or even Volvos once in a while. But no cheap cars like Toyota.

The Estonians are discussing changing the current flag (blue = sky, black = forest, white = snow) to something Scandinavian looking with a cross. I have a better idea and would propose this new flag for "Audiland".

This is not yet the real Estonian flag!

Our first stop was Pärnu, the Mallorca of the north. It is definitely the summer city of Estonia. When we arrived it was 30 degrees Celsius and many people were in the Baltic Sea. Indeed the shallow water was really nice and warm.

We stayed in the Rannahotell right on the beach. It was built in 1937 and gives you kind of classic feeling from the early Estonian times. During the Soviet times all the guests were served the same food and had scheduled entertainments which everyone took part in like basket weaving. Unfortunately, it was not like this anymore.

The next day the temperature dropped by 10 degrees Celsius and it was windy. To my surprise the beach was empty. I thought all the Northerners were Vikings and they would go swimming at the beach even in winter time.

But they are the same sissies (Warmduscher) as we southerners as you can see by the pile of unused beach chairs and the lonely elephant

Since Michelle did her masters degree at the Baltic Sea in Rostock, she knew exactly how to handle the wind and keep her hat on her head. She also learned this technic from Gaby, who was selling Sarongs in Bali on the beach and could balance 8 Sarongs on her head without using her hands.

After leaving this beach city we headed straight north to Tallinn where we visited the Kadriorg part of town. It has nice parks, museums with old stuff, a castle which was built by Czar Peter for Katherina. And best of all there was a museum with contemporary art called KUMU. I guess the moment has come. I have to come out of the closet and tell everybody. Don’t worry, I am not gay or a communist.

The truth is. I do not have a single tattoo on my body. Sorry, I cannot do anything about it, I was born this way. There is another thing. I do not care a lot for old pictures from former centuries. I like modern art much more. If I want to see old stuff, I just look in the mirror at 7am in the morning.

Kadriorg Palace

KUMU modern art museum

In the KUMU they had some interesting art from Estonian artists from older times (not so interesting for me, as already mentioned) and they had a collection from a real cool living artist.

From all the objects in the Marko Mäetamm exhibition, you immediately came to the conclusion that this guy is probably divorced or at least having serious relationship issues.

In the below installation, the couple can only stay together for another 20 years, because they have paper bags over their heads and don’t have to look at each other anymore. Modern art is often very entertaining.

Installation from Marko Mäetamm about marriage

Our apartment was only one kilometer away, but there is a lot of traffic in Tallin so it took us a while to get there. It was a nice soviet style apartment with furniture from the 60s. Our host Marika was very friendly and helpful. She explained together with her English speaking daughter Evelin, how to use the 5 different keys on the 4 doors with 7 looks. After our 4 day stay, we were real experts in locking and unlocking all of those doors. We now can start a second career as prison guards.

Our apartment was in this concrete building and had very interesting decorations and furniture.

On the next day we were ready to visit the old town of Tallinn. It is a beautiful medieval city with only old historic buildings in the city center. Even the people run around like this.

Old Townhall from 1400 which is the only surviving gothic townhall in Northern Europe

Michelle bought the very best candied almonds (gebrannte Mandeln), we have ever had and then we had enough power to climb the tower of the church, where you have a nice view over the city.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral - orthodox church

We even found the three sisters. Important, because we already saw the three brothers in Riga.

Three sisters building ensemble

Behind the main train station in Tallin there is a Russian style black market, where they sell you everything. From meat to stolen watches and old medals from Soviet soldiers. We went into a dinky store which was full of old junk looking for stuff from Soviet times. We found some old posters and Michelle tried to bargain. They did not want to give us better price, so we did not buy anything. They even charged an Euro for taking a picture of the shop. That is why I cannot show you a picture.

Since we were in Asia and South America, Michelle does not buy anything anymore for full price. She has turned into the bargaining queen.

What did we eat while we were in Estonia? Herring.

There are many different way to prepare Herring, but all of them come with sour crème and dill. Michelle was in heaven, since she loves sour crème and dill.

We also learned from an Estonian girl, there a many different ways to drink Vodka.

• Eat a herring, drink a glass of vodka
• Drink the glass of vodka and eat a herring afterwards
• Eat herring, drink vodka, eat herring
• And so on…

The herring is also delicious with the dark rye break. Many thanks to all the Germans, who were here in the last 8 centuries. The bread is first class.

After all this city touring we found a guide with a car to take us to the Laheema National Park which is about an hour away from Tallin. Olga, our tour guide was a young college student. She was driving the van and had 6 people on her tour. Two Canadians, one New Zealander, one Belgium lady, one American and one Bavarian. Luckily, the tour was in English, even though the Belgium lady (of course) only understood French. But the Canadians could translate for her. I wonder if the American lady would have translated for the Bavarian guy.

Kolga Manor

First stop was a waterfall, which was the highest river water fall in Estonia. Does it always have to be a superlative? Can’t it just be a pretty waterfall? Well, the American woman in the picture is a superlative. The water in the waterfall was brown because it flows through peat.

jägala waterfall

Another place we visitted was a former submarine station where they demagnetized Soviet submarines until the Russian soldiers left the base in 1994. Everything is just as it was when the soviets left, so it looks deserted and is a good and dangerous party area for young people.

Hara Submarine Base

A tour into such an area would not happen in Germany or USA. In Germany, because everything is regulated or it would be renovated already. In the USA, because it was really dangerous to climb and walk into the area. Because of US lawyers, the paperwork and introduction before you could enter the area would take 5-6 hours. Nobody has that much time in the USA.

For lunch we went to a real cool museum, where they showed interesting things. Like this canned water, which was produced in preparation for a nuclear attack by the west. It was already over its expiration date and we were lucky to get fresh water to our delicious lunch. A really fresh smoked salmon (still warm) with potatoes. Of course also with sour crème and dill.

The area around the house was really gorgeous. We visited the really small light house, where the owner and his wife lived in for a few years. He also built his own Viking ship. A cool couple

Käsmo Captian's village

They also had two nice well behaved Irish setters. To my dog Penny: “There are actually well behaved setters on this planets. No more excuses for you!”

The highlight of our tour was the special Estonian swing Kiiking, where up to 6 people can swing standing. Olga, Michelle, the Canadian lady and Uli made it almost up and all the way over.

Altja Village

Kiiking is very popular and is part of every festival where they sing and drink while swinging. Sounds dangerous!

Our last stop was the bog. We walked thru the area, picked blue berries and put our feet in the black water. Some people jumped into the dark black water and swam. It is a little dangerous, since you might get stuck in the swamp

Viru Bog

It was an excellent day in the national park, a very special tour and Olga was a super tour guide.

We had a good time in Estonia. That is why we leave our car here in the locked parking area of our apartment. So we have to come back and pick up the car. Hopefully it will wait for us and will not get stolen. It would feel lonely as the one and only Citroen in a county full of Audis.

See you soon in Russia.